


Give me your stars to hold

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hair-pulling, Hand Jobs, Love Bites, M/M, Masturbation, Sibling Incest, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:24:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles returns home from college and figures out why Erik has been so distant since he's been away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For mumblemutter, with all of my love. Thank you to pocky_slash for looking this over.

Charles isn't expecting anyone to be waiting for him when he gets home, so he's not disappointed when he gets out of the cab and there's not a soul in sight. He stands at the foot of the front stoop, staring at the ridiculous, ostentatious entrance, listening to the cab drive off behind him. After a minute, he shakes off the vague feeling of glumness and starts to walk up.

The door opens just as he reaches the top step, and Erik steps out.

"Erik!" Charles says, and he can't resist dropping his bag and pulling him immediately into a tight hug.

"Charles," Erik says, sounding pleased. It's halfway into Charles's hair. It's sort of a shock to realize Erik's _taller_ than him now - surely Charles hasn't been away that long, how could Erik have changed without Charles here to see it happen? Charles had come to terms, in the last year or so, with the knowledge that he himself is destined to be on the smaller side, but that acceptance is still rather different than his baby brother towering over him. His shoulders are broader, too, like a man's, a big man's, not at all a boy's. If Erik wasn't still so skinny, it'd be almost intimidating (but holding him this tight, it's like holding a bird in his hands, all too-light bones he feels like he could crush without even meaning to).

Charles ends the hug, but he doesn't let Erik go, keeping his hands on his shoulders. He can't help grinning up at him. Erik isn't smiling back, but the corners of his mouth are turned up, and there's a flush high on his cheeks that Charles recognizes.

"God, I've missed you," Charles says, shaking his head. He backs away for a moment, to pick up his bag.

Erik leads the way into the house. It's dark inside, not nearly enough lights on, and everything is spotless, immaculate. It looks more like a museum than a home. "Where is Mother?" Charles says.

Erik shrugs. "Out. She doesn't bother telling me her plans, you know." Charles bites his lip at that, but Erik can't see him, and goes on. "I made soup for dinner. There's some left, if you're hungry."

"That sounds wonderful," Charles says, and he follows Erik to the kitchen.

* * *

Charles was six when Erik came to stay with them. Most of his memories of his early childhood are pretty blurry, just vague images and sensations, but Erik he remembers perfectly. It's a dividing point in his mind: up to then, he was alone, and after that he never was.

He remembers sitting on the living room floor, playing with a puzzle, when his mother first brought Erik into the room. Erik was so small - too old to be a baby, but too young to be a big kid like Charles. Charles's mother clutched his hand, and Erik let her, but in a way that seemed almost like he was ignoring her. He didn't look at her at all. He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't crying, either. His face was serious and unhappy and he didn't look at anything in the room.

Charles's mother said, "Charles. This is Erik. He's your new brother."

Charles got to his feet and said, "Hello, Erik," and put out his hand to shake. Erik stared at it for a moment, and then pulled his hand out of Mother's and placed it in Charles's, and he didn't let go.

They were always together. Charles was the only one Erik would talk to, the only one he would let touch him. Mother tried, a little, at first, but she got annoyed at the way Erik would flinch underneath her hand, the way he would stare at her and not answer her questions ("He's a creepy little one, isn't he?" she said once, off hand, and Charles wanted to kill her, because it wasn't that Erik couldn't _understand_ her), the way he would still bring up his other mother, even years later.

Charles and Erik, Erik and Charles. It was always the two of them.

* * *

After he finishes eating and putting away his clothes in his bedroom, he goes out to the lower pantry. Their mother has enough liquor stored away to last the apocalypse. She'll never notice any missing, so Charles doesn't feel the slightest qualms about stealing a bottle of vodka.

He takes it up to Erik's room. The door is closed, and Charles knocks, and lets himself in before Erik responds. It's old habit - he doesn't even think about it, only realizing it when Erik reacts. Erik is sitting on his bed, already dressed for bed, pillows plumped against the headboard behind his back, reading some ancient crumbly sci-fi paperback, but he jumps and looks up with a surprised expression when Charles enters.

"Sorry," Charles says. "I didn't mean-"

"It's all right." Erik slips a bookmark into his book and sets it down on the nightstand beside him. "What are you doing here?"

Charles holds up the alcohol, in lieu of an answer. Erik raises one eyebrow, and then he shifts over, so there's room for Charles to sit beside him on the bed.

He takes the first drink - it's only fair because he's older - before he hands the bottle over to Erik. He waits a couple of minutes, until the booze has had a chance to start working, relaxing his muscles as the warmth spirals out from his belly, before he starts talking.

"So I guess you've been pretty busy this semester," he says easily. He watches Erik's throat as he swallows.

Erik glances over at him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Me? Yeah, right. All I do is go to school and hang out in here."

"I just figured," Charles says softly, "since you stopped writing."

Erik goes still at that. Charles takes the vodka from his hand and takes another drink.

"I didn't want to bother you," Erik says. "You kept talking about all those new friends and stuff you were doing. I just figured-"

He doesn't finish the sentence. Part of Charles wants to laugh, and part of him doesn't want to at all. It's not even like he's had many friends in his life at all - aside from Erik, of course. It was nice having people to talk to at school, feeling like part of things. But it's not anything like what the two of them have. He can't even imagine why Erik would have thought he'd ever want to reject him, let alone for some people he just met.

"Erik. _Erik_. That's stupid. How could you even-"

Erik isn't looking at him, his fingers curling into the blanket between their thighs. "You had a girlfriend. You had more important stuff going on."

"I had a girlfriend for _three weeks_ ," Charles says. "And that's- how could you think anyone could ever be more important than you? Ever?"

Erik looks at him then, his gaze scanning over Charles's. Whatever he sees he seems to like, because Charles can see some of the tension go out of his body. Charles reaches out, laces their fingers together.

"You ass," he says affectionately.

Erik shakes his head, and there's a smile starting to form. It's still in its infancy: Charles doesn't think anyone but him would be able to recognize it for what it is.

"What was it like?"

"Hmm?"

"What was it like?" Erik repeats. "With Moira? She was the first person you ever kissed, right?"

"I - yeah," Charles says. He'd been a little embarrassed about it - it seemed, somehow, at college that everybody else had more experience than him - but there's no point in being embarrassed around Erik. Erik knows everything about him. "What about you? Have you met anybody?"

Erik scoffs at the question. He reaches out with his free hand and Charles hands back the alcohol. After he drinks again, his voice is a little lower, deeper. "Did you two - did you have sex with her?"

Charles swallows. "Yeah."

Erik's eyes are almost glittering. It's gotten dark, sometime when Charles wasn't paying attention, and there aren't any lights on in Erik's room. Charles should reach out and turn on the lamp on the nightstand, maybe, but for some reason he doesn't. "What was it like?" Erik says again.

"Nice," Charles says quickly, squeezing Erik's hand tight without really meaning to, "it was nice. Erik, I don't know what-"

"I think there's something wrong with me," Erik says, almost dreamily.

"There's _nothing_ wrong with you," Charles says, and the fierceness in his voice surprises him.

"You don't know, Charles, it's like... all the time. It can't be normal."

"Everybody thinks that," Charles says. "Everybody thinks they do it too much, it's okay. I promise."

Erik's laugh is a little shaky. "But I don't -" His gaze flicks from Charles's face, down to the bottle still in his hands, and then back to Charles." I don't think about girls when I do it."

"That's okay, too," Charles says. "You know that. You know that I - that I'm bi. Don't let anybody tell you that's wrong."

"That's not what I meant," Erik says. He takes a deep breath, shifts his body so he's almost completely facing Charles, rather than sitting beside him. Charles's heart is pounding against his chest, and he can't quite catch his breath, and he doesn't know why. Erik leans his head in closer and says, so soft Charles can barely hear it, "I think about you."

For a second there's a loud roaring in Charles's ears, like waves crashing on a beach. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe.

"Charles?"

He squeezes Erik's hand again, holding on even tighter when Erik starts to pull away. After a minute he opens his eyes. There's an expression on Erik's face that he's never seen before, and all he wants is for it to go away.

"It's okay," he says, and he means it. He means it completely. Maybe he shouldn't - anyone else would say so - but there isn't any other answer. It's Erik.

He kisses Erik on the mouth, just a soft press of their lips together, calm and chaste. It's Erik's first kiss, he thinks to himself. He'll remember this forever.

"You don't have to- I know you don't-" Erik says against his mouth, almost gasping.

"I do, though," Charles says, "I always have." He's already hard; they haven't even done anything and he already feels this desperate for it.

"Shut up," Erik says, and Charles doesn't understand why he sounds so _angry_ about it. This time Erik kisses him, and it takes Charles by surprise how strong he is, how forceful. His mouth is warm and wet and his tongue is in Charles's mouth and one hand is on Charles's shoulders, pressing so tight. Charles can't hold back his moan. He wraps his own hands around Erik, digging up under his t-shirt to the soft skin at the small of his back and pulling him closer.

Erik pulls away after a moment, breathing heavily. He's still holding the vodka, and he sets it on the floor, out of the way. He hesitates a second, then, before meeting Charles's eyes, and then pulls his t-shirt over his head and throwing it off the bed. He watches Charles, silently, and after a moment Charles realizes he's waiting, and he strips off his own shirt as well.

The part of Charles that's glad he's not completely sober is also grateful for the darkness now, but it's fighting against the other part of him that wishes he could _see_ Erik, look at him all over, everything new and familiar all at once, instead of just this teasing flash of pale skin that shines through. But then Erik's pushing him down onto his back and climbing over him, and he's kissing him again, pressing them together everywhere they can touch, and it's a moot point, because Charles closes his eyes again. It's not as though it could be anyone but Erik, anyway. He would know Erik anywhere, everywhere, blindfolded or a million miles away.

He sinks his hands into Erik's thick hair - he's overdue for a haircut, it's gotten shaggy and unkempt. He tugs at a lock of it, not harshly, barely pulling at all, but it makes Erik make such a sweet noise that he has to do it again.

This time Erik pulls his mouth away from Charles's with a gasp. His breath is heavy and damp and hot against Charles's neck; it makes Charles shiver from head to toe. "Charles, God, I didn't know-"

"You like that?" Charles murmurs.

"Do it again," Erik says, pressing a kiss to Charles's shoulder. His hips are working against Charles in an unsteady rhythm, shaking the bed with Erik's surprising strength. He's so close already, Charles thinks, and the thought makes _him_ even harder, too. God, he can remember being fifteen, and just wanting, wanting so much, and for Erik - for Erik, it's Charles that he wants, and Charles can do that for him, right here, right now.

He yanks on Erik's head, cradling his head close against Charles's neck, and Erik lets out something that's almost a whine, high pitched and surprised. Charles can feel the wet heat of Erik's come, soaking between Erik's pajama bottoms and Charles's sweatpants. Erik's thrusts slow down but don't stop completely, a gentle stutter between their bodies, as he gasps through it. "Sorry," Erik says, "sorry-"

"Shut up," Charles says, "shut up, that was perfect, it's all right."

Erik kisses him, and the feeling in Charles's chest is giddy and bright. "Let me touch you. I want to touch you, Charles, can I-" Erik says urgently, his hands brushing quickly all over Charles's torso. It's like a tease but he doesn't think Erik means it that way; it's more like he just wants to touch everywhere, and can't stop long enough to decide, not when there's more skin.

"Yes, yes," Charles says. He pushes Erik away, and Erik makes an upset noise that fades when he realizes Charles is just pushing his sweatpants and boxers down his thighs, getting them out of the way.

Once again he's grateful for the lack of light in the room, because it's a little embarrassing, being naked like this in front of another person. Not as much as he expected, though, not as much as it was before.

Erik's hand on his cock is rough, callused, and there's that strength again, that Charles still isn't expecting from Erik, young and skinny as he is. So fucking strong, and when he closes his eyes he can see it perfectly, the imposing guy Erik is going to be when he's full grown.

Erik doesn't hesitate at all, jerking Charles off fast, hard. Charles thought maybe Erik would want to go slow, want to explore, but no, and this is even better, because Charles doesn't think he could do slow right now. His brother is touching his cock and all he think is how beautiful Erik is and how much he loves him and how much he wants to come.

This is probably how Erik touches himself, Charles thinks suddenly, because he's so confident, so sure. No wonder, he's done it a million times-

Erik rubs a circle on Charles's belly with one hand, still stroking his cock with the other. "Are you almost there? How much longer can you last?"

Charles hopes that Erik isn't really expecting an answer to that, because he's certainly not capable of giving one.

"Because," Erik continues, and how did Charles never realize there wasn't an ounce of mercy in him, not one drop, "what I've really thought about, thought about the most, is my mouth. My mouth on you."

"Oh, fuck you," Charles manages to just barely get out, and he's coming in Erik's hand.

Erik gets up from the bed, and Charles can just hear him shucking his pajama pants with a faint mutter of distaste, before he crawls back in beside Charles, completely naked. Charles kicks his own sweatpants off, flinging them off the bed with one foot. He turns on his side to face Erik. He can make out the shape of his face, fill in every line, every inch from memory.

"You can't say things like that and not expect - not expect a reaction," he says to Erik, trying to sound disapproving.

"Sorry," Erik says, not even trying to disguise the smugness in his tone.

Charles kicks him in the shin, and it earns him one of Erik's rare laughs. Somehow it turns into wrestling, the two of them pushing and fighting for dominance, and oh, of course they've done this so many times before, just joking around, playing together. But it's different now, of course. Charles wins this time; he pins Erik on his back, kneeling over his chest and holding his wrists together above his head. He thinks Erik was maybe not trying his hardest, that maybe he wanted Charles to win this time. Charles doesn't mind.

Charles wants to say something, something important and meaningful, something that would tell Erik all the things he's feeling right now, but he can't think of any words that would fit. So instead he just says, "Hey."

"Hey," Erik says back.

And somehow Charles thinks maybe that's all they needed to say, anyway. He leans over and kisses Erik again.

* * *

He wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of Erik's heavy breathing. There's a groggy split-second between slumber and wakefulness where he realizes where he is (Erik's bed) and what he's doing (lying, his chest to Erik's back, wrapped around him like a snake). It's another second before he realizes what Erik's doing, which is touching himself, though his body's already figured it out.

"Erik," he says, without even meaning to, and he digs his nails in where his hands are resting on Erik's hips.

"Didn't mean to wake you," Erik says, forcing the words out, not pausing or faltering in the rhythm of his hand on his cock. He makes a soft sound, arching back on the next stroke. His head falls back in a way that bares the long line of his neck to Charles. There isn't any point to resisting temptation any more, so Charles doesn't bother to try. Erik's breath catches for a moment as he sucks on the soft skin there, and then again as Charles starts rubbing against him, trying to relieve the tension of his own hard-on against Erik's ass.

"That feels so good," Erik says. Charles can feel every movement of his arm like they're attached somehow, like it's part of Charles's own body. "Is that - is it gonna-"

"Yeah," Charles says, pausing at his efforts just long enough to answer, "it's gonna mark - is that okay-"

Erik doesn't answer in words, but Charles takes the sound he makes as a yes, and when he nips at the same spot, Erik comes with a pained groan, trembling everywhere.

Charles can't wait any longer; he pushes Erik onto his belly, kisses the back of his neck, and he's rutting mindlessly against Erik's ass, over and over, until he's almost sobbing, and he comes, spilling over Erik's endless skin.

"Fuck," Erik says, turning his head to the side and mumbling half into the pillow.

"Yeah," Charles says. He knows there must be a stupid grin on his face, but it doesn't matter, pressed here against Erik's back. He presses his mouth to the prominent knob of Erik's spine and thinks _mine, mine, he's always been mine_.

* * *

Mother is there for breakfast, surprisingly. She flicks through the paper with her long red nails and doesn't eat anything but a few nibbles of toast and doesn't say a word to either Charles or Erik. She does drink a lot of orange juice, though they could be mimosas.

Erik wears his black turtleneck to the table. It's hard for Charles to look at him without flushing, thinking about the hickey that must be blooming there, hidden under the fabric.

Charles eats his oatmeal and Erik his cornflakes. Every time Charles looks up to sneak a glance at Erik's face, Erik is looking at him, too. There's something about Erik's smile that makes the world seem better, that makes Charles feel like he's accomplished something important.

In two weeks, Charles will leave again to return to school. It's not a long time, but maybe it will be long enough. And this time - this time Erik will know, above everything else, that Charles isn't leaving him behind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Correspondence from the computer of Erik Lehnsherr-Xavier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anonymous tumblr prompt.

Charles,

It's Friday night and I'm not sober and you're not answering your phone, you asshole. It would serve you right if I texted you something obscene and you had to answer it while you're out with all your stupid friends.

I wouldn't do that, though. We both know that. Maybe I'll take a picture with the webcam and send it along with this email, though. I'm not wearing a shirt right now. I got too hot and itchy when I got home, so I took it off. I'm just sitting here at the computer in my room with no shirt and wishing you would pick up your fucking phone.

Did you notice the part where I said 'when I got home'? I went to that stupid party tonight, just like I promised you I would. I don't know why. I'm not friends with any of these people. I don't have anything in common with any of them except for the coincidence of age and geographic proximity. I don't know why I even got invited. 

You're going to say I didn't give it a fair chance, but you're wrong. I stayed for hours. I drank shitty beer. I talked to people. Do you know, I think people are scared of me? I don't know when that happened. I still remember being the geek they made fun of, but I guess I'm tall enough now, filled out enough that they don't laugh anymore when I glare at them.

This girl from my math class kissed me by the pool. She tasted like fake strawberry chemicals from her chapstick. I kissed her back and even touched her boob. That's what you would want me to do, isn't it? That's what you keep saying, that I need to do teenage things, that I need to have normal experiences, instead of just this with us. So I made out with a girl. See, I'm trying. Does that makes you happy? Do you like thinking about me with somebody else?

I didn't like it that much, to tell you the truth. I was thinking about you the whole time. 

My stomach hurts. That beer was really terrible. You'd think these kids were rich enough to get something decent. I wish you were here so I could lay down with my head in your lap and have you stroke my hair while we watch cartoons. I wish you were here, period.

I'm going to go lie down and play tetris for a while. Don't worry, I'll get some water and aspirin first too.

I miss you. How many more days until you come home?

(Don't answer that. I know exactly how many. I'm crossing them off on my calendar.)

That's all, I guess. Love you.

yours,  
erik

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Future is in Somebody's Backyard (The Fly Like We Do Mix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/383906) by [cm (mumblemutter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm)




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